“Onely man,” says Sir Philip Sidney quaintly, meaning by “man” what we term _a human creature_, for there is here no sex limitation, “onely man, and no beast, hath that gift, to discerne beauty.” When “that gift” is of generous proportions, as happens once in a while, there is given the further ability to discern “something than beauty dearer.” That phrase is a poet’s. Beauty has been from of old a theme of poets, and the poets of this country, from Chaucer to Browning, have made beautiful girls their theme. Chaucer has good and bad to tell of them. The good may be read in many a tale, and the bad will be best left unread. Browning has good and bad to tell of them. There is good told of “beautiful Evelyn Hope—sixteen years old when she died,” and there is bad told of “the beautiful girl, too white, who lived at Pornic by the sea,” the girl who hoarded gold. Browning, perhaps better than any English poet who ever lived, could describe a beautiful girl’s face and incidentally point out a thing in it detracting from its beauty. He does this with remarkable directness in his poem called “A Face,” which opens— “If one could have that little head of hers Painted upon a background of pale gold, Such as the Tuscan’s early art prefers! No shade encroaching on the matchless mould Of those two lips, which should be opening soft In the pure profile; _not as when she laughs, For that spoils all_.” [Illustration: SPOILT] How did that girl laugh? Probably as too many an English girl laughs—riotously. Of such an one was said a little while hence: “When she laughs, there seems no room left in the world for any other sound.” The loose use of the word “beautiful” in English is largely commented on by foreign visitors to this country. The many English faces that are lovely in colour must strike everyone, but that only a minority of these are lovely in line is undeniable. Now a face to be beautiful must be lovely in colour and in line. “Health and mirth make beauty,” says a Spanish proverb wrongly. They do not so, though they make what is by many deemed a better thing than beauty, being that lovely and pleasant thing named comeliness. The following is a question put by a girl— “Can a girl with a bad nose be called beautiful?” That is a question which one is tempted to meet with the counter-question— _What is a bad nose?_ A bad man—and even, alas! a bad woman—is a thing conceivable; but—a bad nose—No. The thing meant by this girl, it has transpired, is an unbeautiful nose. Certainly a girl with such a nose, suppose it to take the form of a tip-tilted nose, cannot be called beautiful. For her consolation, let her be told that she can fairly be called pleasing, the actual fact, it would seem, being that a tip-tilted nose sets a girl in one matter at an advantage. A London journalist some little time ago gave his readers this piece of information—